Related Tags:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — There’s always something new when “First Night Pittsburgh” kicks off the new year.

This New Year’s Eve is no exception — 320 blocks of ice, each weighing 300 pounds, have been carted to the corner of Eighth and Penn. Ice sculptor Rich Bubin and about a dozen other men are turning 48 tons of ice into a 30-foot labyrinth.

“I love ice,” Bubin explains. “I love working in this art form, where your limits of what you can carve are endless. You can carve anything and everything.”

He also celebrates First Night’s 20th anniversary in Pittsburgh.

“In one of the rooms, I have the button blown up, where it’s inside the wall, from 1995 all the way up to 2014,” he said.

The walls of ice are 5 feet tall. And if you can’t see over them, you can see through them. The pathway ends with a “photo finish.”

“This is the king’s throne and the queen’s throne,” Bubin says, “where you can sit down. There’ll be a pad. And you can have your picture taken here in the royal throne room.”

He says the show continues with another 50 tons of ice.

“Right across the street, in the next parking lot, we’re doing the Fire and Ice show, with fire dancers, fire jugglers, ice carvings and ice with fire coming out of them,” he said. “And then we have a grand finale with fireworks coming off the ice.”